


The Wrong Side of the Coin

by Prix



Category: The Society (TV 2019)
Genre: Bodily Functions, Canonical Character Death, Depression, F/M, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2020-06-26 21:29:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19776793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prix/pseuds/Prix
Summary: Harry thinks about dying and one reason he can't just do it.





	The Wrong Side of the Coin

**Author's Note:**

> So this is a really morbid first fic for a fandom. I did not mean to get into **The Society** the way I did, but here we are. I also didn't think about having some Hassandra feelings, but here we are. This is not a happy fic, but I did it to fill the **"suicide attempt"** square on my [hc-bingo card on dreamwidth](https://prixmium.dreamwidth.org/7685.html). It really is more suicidal ideation than attempt, but since this is the only suicide prompt on the list and it says we can interpret, I'm going to say it counts. I considered trying to make it more on the nose, but the characterization and my stomach disagreed with me. Please let me know if you enjoyed this for... some reason. ♥

Harry feels his stomach gurgle. He hears it too. Sometimes, when everyone is out doing their assigned jobs, it gets so damn  **quiet** . 

Other times, when most of the squaters are at home, he just wishes for  **peace** . 

There is none to be had anyway. None at the bottom of a bottle. 

(He wonders if they have started rationing the liquor, too. 

Maybe they will save it for twenty-first birthday parties. 

His nose crinkles at the thought as if he smells the celebratory vomit as he mops it up.) 

If this goes on until any of them reach their twenty-first birthdays, it suddenly occurs to Harry, he hopes he’s dead by then. 

He doesn’t really know what he had expected to happen after high school. 

College, maybe. But what would he have done in it? 

Driving his fancy car. Deciding who’s worth talking to, who isn’t. Deciding who’s worth being nice to, who isn’t. 

He really hates himself sometimes. 

Only, it isn’t for the reasons everyone thinks he should hate himself. 

He doesn’t hate himself because he was born into a family where he could have nice shit. 

He doesn’t hate himself because he hates dishing out food in the cafeteria or sweeping the church floor. 

He hates himself because… 

Because… 

Because everything? 

Because no reason, really. 

Harry closes his eyes. 

The gray-white light that pours in through cracks that aren’t covered by the curtains bugs him. 

He squeezes his eyes shut tighter. 

Finally, he goes to sleep for a while. 

Dreams don’t know where you are, when you are. 

In his dream, Harry wakes up in the same room, but he rolls out of bed and follows familiar motions. 

The hallway outside his room is clean. 

His mom is already down in the kitchen having a hushed conversation he doesn’t care about on the phone. 

He smells something sweet - French toast or pancakes. He isn’t sure which. 

In a blink, he’s at school. He’s sitting in the gym on the bleachers, waiting for the bell to ring. His mom gets pissed if they wander the halls before the bell, and he isn’t in the mood to push her buttons for some reason. 

He feels a warm body pressed against his side. His arm is draped over it. 

He thinks it’s Kelly. 

It must be Kelly. It’s always Kelly. Of course it is. 

He looks back up over his shoulder as he hears soft footfalls on the soft, creaking wood of the shittier stage that is at one end of the gym. He sees the back of a denim skirt that falls a perfect two inches above the knee - no more, no less. He sees the faintly fluffy mane of blonde hair fall down the back of a sweater. She is leaning down against a plastic card table. 

There is some other nerdy, glasses-wearing girl standing next to her with tight, elementary school braids who gives him a glare that he rolls his eyes at. Strangely, as quickly as he looks at the girl’s face, it seems fake and forgotten. 

Cassandra seems to be filling out some papers with tight, rough movements of her wrist. When she straightens up, she nods and he feels the warm burst of her voice that projects just a little too much for the conversation. She is buttering up whichever teacher is in charge of minding the jungle this morning. Of course. 

She walks over toward the edge of the stage, toward the steps to one side. She is cradling a familiar set of stapled papers against her chest. 

He feels a strange burst of curiosity and amusement. 

Suddenly, he forgets the warmth at his side. He disentangles himself and hops up to his feet, bounding over to block Cassandra’s exit just as she carefully sets foot on the bottom of the five steps. 

She makes herself even more rigid as she looks him in the eye. 

Most people look away if they don’t like him. She doesn’t. 

She never does. 

“What?” she asks with a smile that bugs him. It bugs him because it sees him exactly the way she sees everyone else. She doesn’t see him as more powerful, more popular. She also doesn’t even hate him for what he thinks he is compared to her. 

He feels his hands ball into fists - he thinks. For some reason, his fingertips never reach his palms. 

“You running for my mom’s secret police? Because I  _ know _ you’re not wasting your valuable time running for a position I’ve got in the bag.” 

Cassandra gestures to him and back to herself with her packet of papers, causing it to crinkle a bit against her chest. 

“Oh, no. Harry,” she says, gently chiding without her smile wavering. “Don’t you know that people  _ vote _ for student council positions? That’s sort of how democracy works, or weren’t you paying attention when they taught that?” 

Harry feels like his movements are sluggish when he shrugs. 

He says something about playing a game she can’t win. 

Will never win. 

Cannot ever win. 

Please don’t win. 

Please don’t beat him. 

Please don’t get it in your head you can lead, can win, can’t lose. 

You’ll lose. 

He thinks he sees her lips turned blue like she’d been drinking a slushie too quickly. 

Please. 

Please, you’ll die. 

You’ll kill yourself. 

He feels like he cannot speak. He does not know if he can open his mouth or if the problem is further down in his throat. He watches her eyes with stage fright, and he cannot provide his next line. It is like he is a computer with a corrupt file or something. He doesn’t understand it, and he doesn’t want to look away from her eyes. 

They are ten years old. 

Living in suburban New England, they are at some summertime community event where their parents socialize together and pretend that there aren’t adulterers, thieves, and worse among them. 

The kids are hanging around the gazebo for some shade, sweat making lanky and chubby legs stick together and draw the attention of gnats. 

They don’t hate each other now. 

That is the first thing he thinks, and it is weird because he is ten again, and he has never thought about hating Cassandra in particular. 

He wonders if she ever hated him. 

It seems like she could. It seems like she… should? 

He is distracted - something weird her kid sister Allie is doing out in the yard. 

Cassandra laughs with abandon as she watches her sister, sitting there and kicking her legs on the railing. 

The world seems turned upside down, pushing him from the age of ten back to waking up in his sweat-stained bed in a second. 

This place is the nightmare. 

He glances over and fumbles for his phone. 

He checks the time and glances at the light still pouring into the room through the cracks in the curtains. 

**Damn it.** He doesn’t even know when he fell asleep, but it hasn’t been long enough. 

He wishes he could sleep forever. 

His feet are touching the floor before his brain informs him of their intention.

“Fuck, shit… damn it,” he complains to himself as his legs tingle back to life and he promptly stubs his little toe while walking along the foot of his bed. 

He is an idiot. 

He feels like he is ten feet behind himself, but he keeps seeing through his eyes. 

His foot sends waves of inordinate pain for such a small injury up to his brain. He clenches his fists and feels  **angry** because there is no reason it should hurt so much. 

He goes to the window. He moves his fingers so he can see down into the yard below. 

Some people are home, but they’re out doing something with a ball and a pool noodle. 

He snarls and closes the annoying gap in the curtains, creating a more perfect darkness. 

He turns to look at his room. His bed is a mess, but who’s around to care? 

He realizes that he should take a piss, but he also thinks that he doesn’t really think he has to piss enough. 

Either way, he heads to the bathroom, just hoping - praying, maybe - that the drain isn’t clogged by someone’s shit or hair. 

Everything seems pretty normal when he locks himself in the nearest bathroom. He runs himself a glass of water. He downs it like a shot, almost resentfully. 

He looks at his reflection. There is the caked, sticky white of saliva to one side of his mouth. He runs some water on his fingers and swipes it off, as if it makes a dent in his not having showered for at least twenty-four hours. Hey, he’s doing his part for water conservation. 

With that nearly altruistic thought, he lifts the (amazingly closed) toilet lid and seat and forces himself to try and pee. He flushes. He stands there and puts the seat and lid back down, snarling once again at the pointlessness of it. 

Back to the mirror, he is pretty taken by how he used to think he was pretty hot. At least, he knew how to make it work. 

Now he sees himself like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, put together but he can still see the lines and seams where it would be so easy to pull them apart and make them into something broken and grotesque. 

He remembers and wonders at once. Why did he dream about her? 

About Cassandra. 

He starts talking to his reflection, but he is talking to her. 

“Hey, why are you the one that gets to be dead?” 

And he knows why. At least one part of  **that** puzzle. 

It is a hazy memory. He feels himself thrusting his hips. He remembers what he thought, what he’d said, and what it had… led to. 

He is down on his knees with bruises against the cold floor. He just barely gets the damn toilet seat back up in time to wretch bitter water back up. 

He sits there. He lets his head thump hard back against the wall. He looks over at the bathtub. He looks up at the sink. He stares at the medicine cabinet for a long, long time, wondering if he took everything in the house if it would be enough. 

He wonders, just for a second, if he had told her “fine,” instead of insisting that she only wanted to keep an eye on him if things would’ve turned out… even a little differently. 

He wonders if maybe then he would get to be the one who was dead now. 

He looks down at the underside of one forearm and realizes he doesn’t even have the stomach for it. 

The familiar sound of a coin flipping over and over and over rings in his ears. He wishes it had come up heads, but not for the reason anyone thinks. Please, just once, just now, let it be him… 

He guesses he has to stay alive now, because for once she didn’t. It doesn’t make sense, but it is all there is to it. 

“Not fucking fair,” Harry mumbles to himself, and it isn’t, but there’s no one around to do the right thing anymore, is there? 

  
  
  



End file.
